


The Devil's Lil Monster - Mad Love

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Doctor!Sam, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Harley Quinn/Joker AU, Killer!Lucifer, M/M, Mental Asylum, Murder, Prison Escape, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:58:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7864783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam attends his first day at the Detroit Psychiatric Asylum, eager to start working with his assigned patient that has the very fitting name “The Devil”. Their first meeting goes different than expected though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“You sure you can handle the big guy?” Dr. Tran asked serious, drawing a laugh from his new colleague.

Sam Winchester, fresh from Stanford and attending his first day at the Detroit Psychiatric Asylum, smiled at him. He brushed a streak of his chestnut brown hair behind his ear and gave his old friend a stern look with his hazel eyes.

“I _aced_ this diploma, Kevin. You know why? To crack guys like _The Devil_.”

“He’s not like other inmates, you know. The last one that tried to _crack_ him is in one of the cells we just walked past.” Kevin jerked his head back, to which Sam narrowed his eyes.

“Did he… do something to him?”

“Let’s say his mind is a little damaged since the devil convinced him it would be nice to chew his own tongue off.”

Sam shuddered and shook his head. He had heard stories about the one Kevin referred to, but this one was new. A serial killer, psychopathic with more daddy issues than anyone could count and no morale whatsoever. They said his eyes could steal ones soul and that his silver tongue would spit the sweetest lies and that no one ever got even so much as a glimpse beneath the façade he had built up. But then again, stories spread like wildfires and The Devil had been on the run for a long time before he was captured – he basically became a legend on his own by now.

“Did you ever see how they talked?” Sam asked after a moment, curious.

“No,” Kevin shook his head. “House rules. No listeners during the sessions, except from a tape that always records what happens.”

“So? Where is the tape?”

“Dr. Novak ate it.”

Sam blinked and looked Kevin dead in the eye, his lips jerking slightly – he couldn’t he real, right?

“He… _ate_ it?”

“Yep,” Kevin shrugged. “When we asked him why he did it he laughed like a maniac. His eyes… they were completely insane, Sam. He was sane when he walked in there and an hour later we had to drag him out because he was eating himself _alive_.”

“Damn… what did you do to the devil then?”

“Nothing. We had no proof he did any of this. No cameras and the tape was destroyed – Cas could have done it himself without any influence. But this guy looked very amused, so I beg you to be careful.”

“No worries, Kev,” Sam smiled and nudged the shorter one’s shoulder. “I’m a professional with an excellent psyche – I won’t freak out and eat myself, promised.”

“Your words in god’s ear. Good luck.” Kevin squeezed Sam’s shoulder before the brunet stepped through the security doors and into the high level block.

Sam wasn’t worried at all about what Kevin had told him, even though it came by surprise. He hadn’t finished his courses with straight A’s for nothing. There was nothing he wasn’t prepared for when he stepped in front of the glass cell with the man sitting on the metal bed – until The Devil looked up.

The pictures he had seen and the things he had heard didn’t even come close. Those eyes looking at him were glowing and the smirk that curled his lips gave the unusually handsome face an almost eternal touch. Sam had to fight all his instincts to not step back or move – whatever this man was, he was not normal. Swallowing hard, Sam clutched the board in his hands against his chest and tried to calm his tensing nerves before opening his mouth.

“Lucifer Morningstar, I am your new assigned psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Winchester.”

For a few seconds the prisoner didn’t react, but when he did there was an elegance in his movements that fascinated Sam. The way he stood up from his bunk was almost graceful and when he stepped up to the glass to look directly into Sam’s eyes the doctor felt a cold creep up around him that was both creepy and intriguing.

“Finally,” the words rolled of the blond prisoner’s lips with a sweetness Sam didn’t expect. “I’ve been told someone new would come soon. It’s been boring in here without any company.”

“You had your chance at company,” Sam tried to scoff, but his words came out rather weak and shaky instead. “What did you do to Dr. Novak?”

“Me?” The Devil looked almost shocked and raised his hands in defeat – the weird smirk still on his lips. “I didn’t do anything. Maybe he saw something that made him… _mad_.”

“And what would that be, Mr. Morningstar?”

“Please, call me Lucifer.”

“I think I will decline, no offense.”

Sam and The Devil stared at each other for a moment, both not even blinking – just examining the other silently. Finally, with almost a chuckle, the blond nodded.

“Very well. He saw his soul, Dr. Winchester. And he didn’t like how it looked apparently.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked, but the other just smiled at him mysteriously.

“I’m looking forward to our first session, _doctor_.” Lucifer just said and walked back to his bunk bed, sitting down and crossing his legs. His eyes found Sam’s again, who simply stared at him bewildered.

“M-Monday, three p.m.” Sam muttered, unable to keep his voice steady or his legs from shaking now. What the hell was happening here? “See you then, Mr. Morningstar.”

Sam was already turning around, ready to leave, when the devil spoke again.

“I can’t wait, _Sam_.”

A weak sigh escaped Sam’s lips – a sound so unusual that he couldn’t even tell what it meant, but when he kept walking he realized that he felt hot and cold and that with every passing step his mind drifted away from him a little more. When he passed one of the other cells – one that was empty – he saw his reflection in the glass and stared at himself in complete shock. He was blushing like mad.

The devil couldn’t wait. Honestly, Sam couldn’t either. He wanted to know more about this man, he _had_ to. There was something to him that he couldn’t figure out, but he sure would.

The Devil wouldn’t get him, no way.


	2. Nightly Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the weekend Sam takes The Devil’s file home for some research and soon finds himself going through more than just the blood on his hands. sam finds some strange coincidences and it doesn’t take long until Sam realizes there might be more to all of this than he thought. There seems to be a connection between this criminal and himself, but he doesn’t know why or how.

The whole rest of the day Sam could barely concentrate properly. He had a few other patients, including one who thought he was a superhero and had killed three innocent women because he had accused them of being demons. It was almost impossible to stay patient and calm while working with this one – Sam constantly had to leave the room for a minute to not just explode in front of him.  Sam couldn’t explain what was wrong suddenly. Usually he was the calmest person in a room, not even the worst threats could make him lose his patience. Now he was nervous, forgot what he wanted to say and kept drifting away mid-sentence without even knowing why.

When his shift was finally over, Sam was relieved. He went back into Kevin’s office before leaving, asking him to get the files of The Devil to read through at home over the weekend, before he would have his first session with him on Monday.

“Be careful with this, Sam,” Kevin frowned when he handed the thick folder over to the other. “Some stuff is pretty gruesome.”

“I figured that much,” Sam nodded and sighed. “This guy is creepy.”

“Oh, you think?” Kevin chuckled and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs over the desk in front of him. “Let me tell you something about Lucifer Morningstar, Sam. Whatever is wrong with him, he believes he is the devil that walks the earth. _Literally_. He is one of the longest searched criminals in the history of this country – twenty years they chased him and wherever he went death followed him. Ever heard of a city called ‘Divanos’, near the Mexican border? A hundred and ten souls – gone.”

“You’re joking, right? He didn’t go there and they all just died or let him kill them.”

“On no, not at all,” Kevin let his legs drop and leaned over, folding his hands. “There is one person that passed through town the day The Devil arrived. He said that he was freezing – _mid-summer_.”

“So?” Sam raised a brow, not quite sure if he understood. Maybe this guy just had a cold shiver running down his spine? Wasn’t really something unusual.

“The man returned three days later because he forgot something at the inn. The town was empty and the blond man with the ice cold eyes he had seen walk into the town was nowhere to be seen either.”

“Three days…” Sam bit his lip, wondering if this was a weird coincidence or if this guy really managed to wipe out a whole town in three days. “Did the police find any clues what happened there?”

“Nothing. No letters, no diary entries, not a single car was missing either – it looked like the people just _vanished_ ,” Kevin sighed. “We _know_ he was there because of the witness, but two days later he was seen in Detroit already, which is nearly impossible – he’s been driving a Harley the whole time. Never seen without it, actually.”

“Sounds like a badly written episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’.”

“Humor me, Sam. I know. Ever since we have him here the police is going crazy because nothing we try makes him talk. Three doctors gave up on him after he kept smiling at them for a week or two and Cas, well, you know what happened to him. We are out of ideas and I really don’t want you to end like him.”

“He seemed rather cheerful to me when I told him we had a session on Monday,” Sam said.

“Did he?” Kevin seemed surprised and sat back up. “That’s new. He didn’t talk to any of the other doctors before, except from Cas once he was in his cell.”

“Maybe he thinks it’s a game,” Sam shrugged, out of ideas. “He wasn’t aggressive though, so I guess that’s a good sign.”

“I pray to god that it is. Sam, this is serious business. If he starts acting weird or asks personal questions – _leave_. It’s not worth risking another life just to find out why he’s a psycho, we already know he is.”

“I’ll be careful,” Sam promised and stood up. “Once I’m through these I’m prepared.”

Kevin nodded, but didn’t say anything anymore. He seemed lost in his own thoughts and Sam figured it would be better to just leave him alone. Those files were heavy stuff and he’d probably spend the whole weekend going through them and making notes – he would be busy.

On his relatively short way home, Sam had a weird feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t something he could specify or say where it came from, but it was nagging on him to a point where he was glad finally pulling into the garage and getting out of the car. By then his hands were shaking, so he tried his own breathing exercise that had helped him calm down through the whole day already to make them stop. Two minutes passed before Sam felt better and grabbed the file folder from the passenger seat.

Inside he directly went into the kitchen to make himself some strong coffee before sitting down at the table and opening the main file on The Devil.

Within minutes Sam was drawn in and browsed through the little they actually knew about this man as a person. Apparently he never gave them a different name than _Lucifer Morningstar_ , which the police had found to be made up of course. His fingerprints didn’t match anyone in their database and his face couldn’t be found anywhere either. What they knew though, was that he enjoyed his life as a killer.

The Devil was not overly brutal or tortured his victims, but he was known to be precise and following his own rules. Most people he killed were criminals themselves, with some seemingly innocent ones every now and then, which always turned out to be not so good after all. This surprised Sam; he would have expected mindless killing sprees and bloodbaths all over the country. Reality though, was different.

The first case they were able to connect with The Devil was actually the most brutal. A priest had been hung up in a church – mutilated and tortured to death. They found him nailed to the huge cross over the altar with the words ‘The Devil Walks The Earth’ written in the priest’s blood on a wall. This was the reason the police gave the unknown killer his nickname, but after that most of his crimes involved fire, humiliation or simple assassination. Some kidnappings, as far as Sam could tell, but those usually ended just like the other victims.

People witnessing The Devil’s actions had described him as charming and handsome in the past, contrary to his very frightening and intimidating posture. Surprisingly there were a lot of witnesses, as if he _wanted_ to be seen. Despite that he sometimes just vanished and no one saw him for months. In the past he had been reported to have numerous jobs, but whenever someone recognized him he was gone before police officers could investigate. They had all been every day jobs, but his coworkers described him as a quiet and fascinating personality. Sometimes the people he worked with disappeared and were found dead long after The Devil had already left, but something else got Sam’s attention.

He had always been _near_ him. Back when his dad and his brother had dragged him through the country and Sam had switched schools within months, sometimes weeks, The Devil had been on the loose already. Intrigued by this new clue, Sam finally stood up and poured himself a mug of coffee before getting a pen and book so he could take notes.

In 1991, when he had a very shitty Christmas with his big brother in Nebraska, Lucifer had been spotted in the same city. He left with a dead body count of five, a group of homeless men that had been bothering the police for months already - pedophiles who molested children on the playgrounds.

During the time Sam had lived with his dad’s friend Bobby in Sioux Falls, numerous people reported seeing The Devil to the police. There had been no incidents through those months, only shortly before his dad had picked Sam up again a woman had been found dead with her eyes burned out in an ally. They couldn’t relate the case directly to Lucifer, but since the pedophiles from before suffered similar injuries they held him accountable for her death too.

While they were visiting another friend of his dad during summer holidays various lower class criminals had been killed in the surrounding cities – all connected to The Devil and his methods.

Again and again this circle seemed to continue and the deeper Sam dug through the file, the more confused he became. This couldn’t be coincidence, no way. Somehow this man had followed Sam and his family through the country and kept murdering on the way as if it was his daily business. Well, obviously it _was_ , but that didn’t help Sam at all to understand this. When he was through the whole file he had over fifty murders that occurred within a ten mile radius of the place he had stayed during that time. Only when they had arrested Lucifer this pattern was broken – one year ago. Until then five of the murders in and around Stanford were on _him_.

Sam sighed and closed the folder, glancing up at the clock next to the fridge. It was already past midnight, but he didn’t feel tired at all anymore. A cold shiver ran down Sam’s spine and he stood up, forcing himself to go to bed to at least rest, even if he couldn’t sleep.

All of this was wrong, he could feel it. As if this man had followed and watched him his whole life and he never noticed anything. Could that be? Could he be the obsession of a psychotic serial killer who just waited for the right timing to finally get him? If so, Sam was about to play right into his hands. But what could he do? It was too late to back out now. He would step into this cell in two days and find out what this was all about – one way or another he would find out the truth.

—

Sam didn’t fall asleep before three in the morning, the horrible things he had read making it unable to drift away on his own; in the end it was sheer exhaustion knocking him out. Around noon he finally woke up and felt like he suffered from a huge hangover, even though he didn’t drink a single drop of alcohol. After a quick shower and another mug of coffee, Sam headed out for his daily run through the nearby park. Any other day this activity cleared his head and made it easier to think, but this wasn’t a normal day and Sam came back even more tired than he left – resulting in him just crashing onto his bed and sleeping for another two hours.

He didn’t even wake up on his own – his phone did. At first Sam tried to ignore it, but the persistent sound was so annoying that he eventually gave in and took the call with a grumpy ‘What?’.

“Hey, Sammy! It’s been a while. How is my little brother doing?”

Sam rolled his eyes and sat up, cursing himself for not getting out of his sweaty clothes before.

“What do you want, Dean? I’m busy.”

“Busy chasing girls around campus?”

“Just so you know, I’m a doctor now, so you better stop treating me like a child. Besides, you were the one chasing skirts, not me. I preferred to study and not waste my money for one night stands.”

Sam dragged himself off the bed as his brother laughed, wondering why on earth he even bothered to call. They rarely talked since Sam had left for college and even when they did it was more often than not just Dean asking if he was sick of school yet.

“No need to get all grumpy, Sammy. Partied too hard last night?”

“I don’t party. I’ve been working on my first case,” Sam was in the kitchen by now, turning the coffee machine on again and stripping out of his pants. “I have a lot to do right now, so just tell me what you want.”

“I just wanted to check on you. Dad is busy in Troy and I thought about paying my little brother a visit.”

“And what for? I don’t have _time_ , Dean. This case can end my career before I started it!” Sam didn’t like his brother’s visits much as they usually got him into trouble. The last time he dropped by in Stanford Sam nearly got expelled because Dean kept him up all night so he would miss his courses.

“Pretty rude, Sammy. It’s been a year since we saw each other.”

Dean sounded kinda disappointed, to which Sam pinched his nose and sighed.

“Listen, Dean. I would love to, really. But I can’t. I need to focus on this, distractions won’t help.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll check the city out myself then, enjoy your new job, _doctor_.”

Before Sam could say anything else the line was dead and he stared at his phone in disbelief. What the hell just _happened_? Sam shook his head and put his phone down to get a coffee. Sometimes he wanted to kill his brother, really. Even with thirty he still couldn’t stop seeing life as a game without any responsibilities. Sam never understood how he could poison himself with alcohol every night or have at least one girl in every new town he hit. He only ever had had one girlfriend and even that didn’t work out due to his almost obsessive studying. Turning Dean off shouldn’t make him feel so bad, honestly. He knew what would happen if he stayed a night or more – constant drinking and no work at all. Sam couldn’t risk that, not now; and yet, the guilt was there and he knew it wouldn’t leave for a while.

So, instead of partying with his brother, Sam dove back into the file about The Devil and began rereading it – this time paying attention to every single detail though. He wanted to know as much as he could before facing him in person again. Like the night before, Sam found a lot of strange things, but this time he wrote them all down. The reports stating witnesses saw his eyes glow in a blueish light, the ones saying he simply vanished into thin air and even the ones claiming he jumped off a ten story building without any harm – it all went into Sam’s black notebook.

Sunday went by just the same, without the run though. Sam got to bed around two am, stood up at noon and, after forcing down a few bites of leftover pizza from the night before, went right back to his notes. He even got on his laptop to do some more research on the crimes mentioned in the files, slowly drifting into a spiral of blood and violence. He should have been appalled and disgusted by all of this, but the feeling of needing to know more and to dig deeper was overshadowing any other emotion.

When Sam went to bed at a more reasonable time on Sunday he couldn’t wait for work to begin. For some reason Lucifer had been following him almost all his life and he wanted to know why. He didn’t even realize that this was the only thought left in his head – anything else didn’t seem important anymore.

Sam couldn’t make sense from any of this yet, but hopefully he would soon.


	3. The Devil's First Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a rather draining weekend Sam has the first session with Lucifer and finds out a few things he didn't expect - and some of them he won't get out of his head so easily.

Sam opened his eyes seconds before his alarm went off. This had not been a pleasant night for sure. When he dragged himself out of bed he noticed the blanket on the floor, indicating a very active sleep, which fit his tiredness pretty good. Sam directly headed for the bathroom and took a shower, then got dressed and ready for work. He purposely left the coffee out this morning, knowing they had much stronger stuff at the Asylum, and just settled for a sandwich before grabbing the file and his keys.

Kevin had his day off, so Sam was greeted with his assistant, Charlie, instead. Sam had met her during his second year in Stanford – Charlie had just finished her last exams and was visiting some friends. She greeted him with a surprising but not uncomfortable hug, to which Sam immediately smiled.

“Ready for today? Kevin already told me, The Devil seems to be eager.”

“Eager?” Sam was amused, he didn’t expect this. “Did he say anything?”

“No, but he’s been on his feet since you left, according to Kevin,” suddenly Charlie bit her lip though and gave Sam a worried look. “I don’t like this. I can almost hear his brain working, but it’s impossible to say what he plans.”

“Relax, Charlie,” Sam smiled and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’ve been through his files three times this weekend, he won’t be able to surprise me.”

“If anything happens you use the emergency button on your beeper, okay?”

Sam nodded and took the beeper from his belt, showing her that he had it and knew where the button was.

“Maybe I can get him to talk, find out what’s going on in his head.” He suggested, to which Charlie sighed.

“I hope you’re right. I’ve been assigned to work with Fergus today and he just won’t stop freaking out because of the hell hounds that are after him.”

“Hell hounds?” Sam chuckled, but Charlie gave him an angry glare, then shook her head

“It’s horrible. He thinks invisible beasts from hell are after him and if we don’t fix him through the night he will bang on the doors and wake the whole place up. Showed me ‘proof’ that they were after him last night, but it just looks like he bit himself in the ankle.”

“Damn, isn’t he the one who proclaimed himself king of hell? Kevin told me about him. Shouldn’t those hell hounds be on his side then?”

At this Charlie actually laughed and her tension faded away a little.

“Must be a very bad king of hell then,” she giggled and rolled her eyes. “Anyways, I’m over there now, trying to reason with him. Until your session, feel free to make yourself comfortable. Just hands off my Hermione figure. It’ limited edition.”

Sam couldn’t suppress a smile when he noticed the small bobble head figure on her desk and nodded. Charlie always had this nerdy touch to her, Kevin had told him, but it was kind of sweet in his eyes. Once she was gone he decided to get the coffee he had looked forward to and go through his notes to see what he could bring up in the first session with Lucifer and what he would better leave out.

Charlie came back at twelve, inviting Sam for dinner in the cafeteria and there she introduced him to the rest of the team in their block: Garth, who worked in the labs, Jo, who had an internship position, and Ash, the one responsible for everything technical. Sam was surprised to see such a small staff, but Charlie assured him they had several interns rotating so they never really ran low –besides their block didn’t have too many inmates to begin with – and there were the regular guards of course, but they were hired by an external security company so they didn’t really belong to the staff.

They had a lot of fun during their lunch and Sam thought he might actually enjoy working there for a while. Jo and Ash were constantly joking with each other, which amused Sam greatly, all while Garth and Charlie began an in depth conversation about a TV show after a few minutes. It didn’t even feel that long before they all separated and went back to work – Sam and Charlie heading back to her office together.

“Kevin already ordered a complete workplace for you too,” Charlie smiled when they came back and Sam took a seat at Kevin’s empty desk. “Shouldn’t take longer than a week, until then we can just switch.”

“No stress,” Sam said and took a deep breath. It was already one, two more hours and he would have his first session with Lucifer. Slowly he began to get a little nervous – even without the other thinking of himself as the literal devil, this was _still_ his first real therapy session.

 “Relax, Sam,” Charlie said suddenly, startling Sam a little, who was lost in his thoughts without noticing it. “You said yourself you’re prepared, right? It’ll be good, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so,” Sam sighed. “I don’t want to get fired for fucking this up.”

“They wouldn’t fire you, just assign you a different patient, that’s all.”

“Still, I _want_ to crack him.”

Sam bit the inside of his cheeks to not add ‘this is something personal’. Instead he took his notebook back and went through it for what felt like the hundredth time today, only to occupy himself until it was time to leave. Charlie shrugged and turned her attention towards a report she was supposed to write and for the next two hours the two worked in silence.

A few minutes before his session, Sam gathered his notebook, pen and beeper, and made his way towards the room Kevin had shown him before. The guards were on their way picking Lucifer up, so Sam sat down on the chair that was supposed to be his and waited. There was nothing really notable about the room itself, apart from the chair, small table and the couch it was empty. Not even a carpet or some plants were present, but of course Sam knew why they kept this room as empty as possible. The more interior, the more opportunities for the patient to find weapons. Even the table, chair and couch were secured to the ground, making it impossible to move them an inch.

Shortly after three the door opened and two guards brought Lucifer in. They sat him down on the couch and removed the shackles from his feet – the chains securing his hands, however, they kept on. Sam stayed silent until they were gone and took their position in front of the room, only then he looked up at his patient. Lucifer was already glancing at him, his eyes deep oceans of ice and a smile on his face that Sam would have described at pleased if he didn’t know better.

“Mr. Morningstar, as I told you already, I’m your new assigned psychologist. We have two sessions a week, Monday and Thursday. Do you have any questions before we start?” Sam managed to keep his voice under control by pretending to write something down in his notebook, but when he looked back up he was stunned to find Lucifer’s eyes glowing once again – as if there was a light behind them. A second later Lucifer blinked and the glow was gone, leaving Sam baffled.

“Do _you_ have questions, Sam?” the blond asked instead of giving an answer, smirking.

“I would prefer if you’d call me Dr. Winchester,” Sam cleared his throat and tried to collect himself again. “And of course I have questions, that’s why I’m here.”

“Then why don’t you ask them, maybe I have some answers.” Lucifer sat back and laid down on the couch, facing the ceiling.

Sam’s stomach tightened. This wasn’t going to plan, not at all. _He_ was supposed to make the rules, not his patient, but within seconds Lucifer had turned the tables and made Sam feel like it was an honor to talk to him. Mentally slapping himself, Sam shifted in his chair and tried to find his confidence again.

“What’s your name? Your real one, not the one you gave for the records.” Sam eventually asked, to which the blond smiled sadly.

“Morning Star, bearer of light, the devil, Satan, Beelzebub, or just Lucifer. Take your pick, they are all the same to me anyways.”

The silence that followed Lucifer’s words was heavy. Sam thought he had been hit with a brick – reading this man believed to be the devil was one thing, but hearing him say it was entirely different. Despite all his efforts, Sam couldn’t sense a lie in his words and he had always been sensitive when it came to lies.

“You seem surprised, _doctor_ ,” Lucifer said after a while, turning his head.

“Do you really believe you _are_ the devil?” Sam mumbled, unable to raise his voice to a normal volume.

“I might. It all depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you. What is your name?”

The blond seem to think about his answer, turning his head back around to look at the ceiling.

“My name is Lucifer. I’ve been given this name by my father and it’s the only one you need,” he eventually said, sighing.

“Fine, Lucifer it is then,” Sam made a small note in his book before crossing his legs. “Lucifer, we have literally no information about you. Where you came from, your familiar background, we have nothing. Why? Did you fall from the sky one day and started murdering people?”

Sam immediately regretted his question when Lucifer turned his head back around and glared daggers through him. Goosebumps built all over Sam’s arms and it felt like the temperature dropped twenty degrees and there was only one thing in those ice blue eyes now: hatred. The icy shower running down Sam’s spine was nothing compared to the fear tightening his chest and taking the air out of his lungs.

“Do not _ever_ mock me, Samuel Winchester,” Lucifer growled, his voice dark and dangerous and completely different from the charming tone it had before. “This is the one and _only_ time I will let it slip, because you don’t _know_ better. Do you understand me?”

Sam swallowed and nodded, without even thinking.

“Y-yes, of course,” he heard his heart beat so fast in his head that a slight dizziness overwhelmed him. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Of course you are,” Lucifer huffed and sat up in one swift movement.

Sam was too startled to even breathe at the moment – his eyes were glued to Lucifer to not miss anything the other would do. To his surprise though, the blond laced his fingers together and pressed his lips against them.

“I don’t expect you to understand, not yet.”

Sam raised a brow in confusion.

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” he asked.

“Do you believe in God, doctor?”

Sam nearly dropped his pen at this question, completely baffled.

“E-Excuse me?”

“You heard me, I asked if you believe in God,” Lucifer stayed calm, which gave Sam a very eerie feeling about the whole situation.

“I – I grew up in a religious family,” he finally mumbled, not sure what else to say. A silent voice in the back of his head whispered that this was all wrong, that he should just ignore those questions – for him though, it was impossible. Something about the way Lucifer asked – curious but still as if he knew the answer already – was intriguing.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

Sam looked up and blinked a few times. There was no impatience in Lucifer’s voice, not yet, but he was sure it would come sooner or later. For some reason he felt like a helpless little child right now.

“Yeah… I guess I do?” he shook his head, trying to find better words. “I mean, I did as a child, but now it’s not really important to me anymore.”

“Well, if you believed in God, then you had to believe in the Devil too. It’s inevitable.”

“I think I did, yeah.”

Lucifer nodded, as if he had expected this answer, and laid back onto the couch. Folding his hands on his chest he looked at the ceiling.

“You asked about my family,” he continued, emotionless – except for the slight disgust Sam heard when Lucifer said ‘family’. “I had a perfect family, a father and brothers I adored and loved and I would have done anything for them, anything. And one day I disobeyed my father – the one and only time I ever did – and he turned on me.”

“What happened?” Sam asked curious, leaning forward a little. He wasn’t scared of the blond anymore, not at all, in fact he felt a strange similarity between them. It should have been a warning, but it wasn’t.

“What happened doesn’t matter,” Lucifer said, almost sad, and shook his head. “What he _did_ is what matters. I was reasonable, everything I said was the truth, and yet, after all I did for him – after all those times I risked my life for him and my brothers – he could not forgive what I said. He turned on me and cast me out of my home – away from my family and from anything and anyone I ever loved.”

Sam tried to say something, but his mouth was completely dry. Strangely enough his eyes were not and he carefully rubbed the back of his hand over them to prevent Lucifer from noticing anything.

“Before this I never knew pain. I never knew what it would be like to be hated by every single being, even the ones that once claimed to love me. I begged my older brother to stand with me, to reason with our father, but he didn’t even care. He called me a monster, a –“

“A freak…” Sam mumbled unwillingly, still staring at his patient – who nodded again.

“Yes. A freak and a disgrace to our whole family. I don’t know what I ever did to him – we were never getting along as good as my youngest brother and I, but we were still _family_. I would have never done this to _any_ of them. And then, after Michael executed father’s order and kicked me out, they forgot about me.”

“Forgot about you?” Sam couldn’t stop his voice from shaking slightly, to which Lucifer turned his head and looked at him with his deep blue eyes.

“Do you think they would have cared? I was locked away. A monster, stuffed in its cage. Everything was good. Only that I was never a monster to begin with…”

“They _made_ you one.”

“Precisely.”

The door behind Sam opened, signaling the end of their first session, and the doctor wasn’t sure if he was glad about it or not. He watched the guards put the chains back on Lucifer’s feet – the patient’s eyes never once leaving his.

“Thursday, same time,” Sam said and Lucifer nodded.

“I will be here, doctor.”

And with this they guided Lucifer back to his cell and Sam was left in the room, alone with his thoughts.


	4. Fascination and Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's impossible for Sam to stop thinking about the things Lucifer said and during their next session he becomes even more confused - both by Lucifer continuing his story and other, much stranger things he says and does.

This evening, when Sam laid in the darkness of his small apartment and listened to the rain outside, his mind wandered back to the way Lucifer had looked at him at the end of their session. Was this really the psychotic killer he had read about? Except from one outburst – which Sam understood, he _had_ mocked him after all – Lucifer had been reasonable and calm the whole time. How could this man be so dangerous and yet not ring a single alarm in Sam’s head? He had even forgotten to mention the fact that his patient had always murdered near him – it was completely forgotten once Lucifer began to speak.

Sam would have to dig deeper, definitely. They only scratched the surface today, but he was positive that he could find the reason for Lucifer’s actions somewhere in his past. Not only for Lucifer’s sake, but for his own too. He wanted to know – _had_ to know how a loving brother could turn into a lunatic murderer. And he had to know why on earth he felt so damn sorry for what had happened to him.

\---

Tuesday and Wednesday went by almost unnoticed – Sam assisted Kevin and Charlie with their patients every now and then and for the rest of the time just sat at his desk and waited for his shift to be over. More than once Sam caught himself drifting away to sleep in his office chair, a result of both his boredom and the fact that he couldn’t sleep properly anymore. He couldn’t wait for his next session with Lucifer and what else he might be able to dig up.

Dean had called one more time on Wednesday and – despite him knowing better of course – Sam agreed to meet. He told him that he had the weekend and Friday off and Dean could crash at his place for the time being. No partying, just some catching up on the last year. He was almost sure that it wouldn’t work out this way, but he _did_ miss his brother, no matter how different they were sometimes.

While waiting for the next session with Lucifer on Thursday, Sam drank way too much coffee and around noon began to feel nauseous and developed a nasty headache that he couldn’t even fight with the painkillers Kevin offered him.

“Are you sure you wanna do your session today?” Kevin asked concerned, watching the brunet doctor massage his temples with his eyes closed.

“I have to,” Sam groaned and pressed his eyes together even more. “I’m getting through, I _know_ it.”

“Don’t be too sure, I wouldn’t trust this guy further than I can throw him.”

“Very funny,” Sam sighed and sat up, looking at Kevin. “You’ll see, I will crack him. I’ve got a foot in the door, I just have to open it now.”

“Whatever you say, Sam. Just be careful.”

“You know I’ll be,” Sam forced himself to smile, an expression that looked almost creepy. “I _always_ am.”

When it was almost time Sam repeated what he did on Monday – he waited for the guards to bring Lucifer into the session room and stayed silent until they were gone. This time, however, it was more because he feared he would throw up the second he’d open his mouth than out of nervousness.

“You look sick, doctor,” Lucifer noted when he sat down, but Sam just glared at him until the door was closed and they were alone again.

“Bad stomach. Let’s continue where we were interrupted on Monday, you were talking about your family.”

“Not wasting any time, are we?” Lucifer chuckled and crossed his legs, not laying down this time.

“It’s my job,” Sam huffed and shifted a little. “If you don’t want to talk we can just end it for today.”

“You _really_ don’t feel well,” Lucifer narrowed his brows; it wasn’t a question he asked. “What happened?”

Sam sighed and closed his eyes – knowing full well that he gave Lucifer the upper hand and that he could easily strangle him with the chains between his wrists now – and pinched his nose.

“I barely slept the last days and had way too much coffee today,” he finally sighed.

“You’re developing a migraine...”

At this, Sam opened his eyes and gave Lucifer a concerned look, which quickly turned into bewilderment. Lucifer’s eyes were once again glowing and he seemed to concentrate extremely right now.

“You are stressed out, have nightmares and you’re dreading the days that come. Isn’t that true?” Lucifer asked and Sam, completely stunned now, slowly nodded.

“How do you _know_?”

“I can see it,” Lucifer closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them again they were normal.

“Yeah… sure…” Sam mumbled and slowly shook his head. “Anyways, just… let’s continue. You were kicked out, right?”

Lucifer tilted his head as if contemplating, then nodded and laid back onto the couch the same way he did during their last session. Sam was relieved that the discussion was over and he could switch into listening mode now.

“I told you how they all turned on me. I was imprisoned, ignored, _forgotten_. They left me to die, only that I _couldn’t_ die. That wouldn’t have been punishment after all, right?” Lucifer smirked sadly and sighed. “I raged. I don’t know how long I screamed and cried and hurt myself trying to escape, but eventually I realized that _nothing_ I did gained any reaction, any recognition. In the end I did the only thing I could – I adapted.”

“You mean, you tried to move on without them?” Sam asked, but Lucifer shook his head.

“I couldn’t move on, I was still trapped.”

“What do you mean, ‘trapped’? Did they put you into prison or kept you in a room or basement?”

“Let’s say prison, only that it was the loneliest prison you can imagine, with no one else in it.”

“How long have you been there?” Sam asked, to which Lucifer’s smirk faded.

“I don’t know. Millennia, eons, I forgot how long. It felt like forever to me.”

Sam nodded, unsure if he understood him or not. In his current state he didn’t really trust his instincts, but he couldn’t detect a lie in Lucifer’s words either.

“Did they hurt you?” he eventually asked, as it was the only thing he could think of.

“No. I never saw them while I was there. What hurt me was… different. I can’t explain it, you wouldn’t understand yet,” Lucifer shook his head.

Yet, there it was again. Sam had no idea what the blond meant with that. He kept saying he wouldn’t or couldn’t understand _yet_ , but when would he? And how? Did he even _want_ to understand?

“I’ve been to hell, literally. But there was one thing they didn’t take from me, no matter how much torture I experienced, no matter how much agony I felt – this last hope stayed with me and helped me survive.”

“What was it?”

 _Now_ , Sam thought _. I finally got him._

“It doesn’t matter, not now. I was freed and you know what happened then – you read the files.”

Sam stared at Lucifer for a few seconds, torn between laughing and punching the other. Did he really think the infamous Devil would spill his darkest secrets in front of him that easily? He couldn’t believe the naive nature of this false hope.

“Okay, you don’t want to tell me. I get it.” Sam huffed, slightly annoyed. His head was killing him – not to talk about his guts – and this guy kept playing games. He really wasn’t in the mood for that right now.

“I never killed for fun, doctor,” Lucifer said calm, dropping his shoulders. “I _loathe_ humans – they are disgusting abominations, murderous and hateful creatures – but I _never_ killed anyone for the sake of it.”

“Then why _did_ you do it?” Sam asked, confused. “If you hate them so much you could have just left to find a place without any human contact. Instead you defaulted to murder – for over twenty years!”

“I had no _choice_!” Lucifer suddenly yelled and jumped up, causing Sam to do the same and step back. His eyes were wild and glued to Sam’s with a fire he had not seen before. “You have no idea what they would have done if I wouldn’t have stopped them!”

“We have courts for such people, you know that,” Sam shook his head. “You can’t just run around and kill people and think you won’t have to pay the price for it.”

“I _pay_ the price! Every single day I pay the price for what I did. You have no idea, Sam…”

For a moment Sam thought Lucifer would jump forward and grab him – the anger in his eyes was overwhelming – but then his whole dangerous posture collapsed and he sank back onto the couch. Sam’s nerves relaxed a little, until he saw Lucifer look up at him with eyes that spoke a truth he couldn’t understand – yet.

“Do you know how it feels when the only important person in your life sees you as a monster and as something that needs to be locked away?” Lucifer asked, his voice filled with a pain Sam couldn’t imagine ever feeling. “Do you know how it feels when you do _anything_ to save them, only to become what they fear the most?”

“No…” Sam mumbled, unable to look away from the blond.

“Don’t tell me there were other ways, don’t,” Lucifer shook his head and looked away from Sam. “If you don’t know, don’t say such ignorant things.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam muttered and slid back into his chair. “I didn’t mean to sound rude or ignorant. What you said… sounds horrible.”

“Because it _was_.”

“I know, but still. What you did wasn’t _right_ , you know that, don’t you? Deep inside you know your actions were wrong.”

Lucifer turned his head slowly, his glare so cold that Sam felt the hairs on his arms rise again.

“You wouldn’t sit here if I would have spared _any_ of them,” he said, every word like a bullet hitting Sam right in the chest. “Maybe what I did isn’t right in _your_ eyes – for me it was the only option.”

“What –“

Sam couldn’t continue his sentence – not that he had any idea what to say anyways – because the guards came in this very moment and ended their session. Stunned he stared at the three men as they walked out, but this time he followed them to Lucifer’s cell. It took a little convincing for the guards to leave so they would be left alone, but eventually Sam succeeded and now – with a glass wall separating them – doctor and patient looked at each other.

“Do you need anything, doctor?” Lucifer asked after a minute of silence, smirking knowingly.

“Answers, for starters,” Sam couldn’t hold back the sarcasm in his voice, which seemed to amuse Lucifer.

The blond nodded and walked over to his bed to sit down.

“It depends on what answers you want. Maybe it would be better to wait though, you probably can’t handle them right now anyways.”

Sam had no idea how to respond. This man made him feel like a stupid little child that couldn’t even tie his shoe laces and he just stood there and wanted to pout and say ‘Please tell me’. What the hell was happening here? Why did he feel the urge to prove himself to this two-faced serial killer?

Frustrated and angrier than he had been for years, Sam turned on his heels and stormed away. He didn’t even care that it looked like he was running away from an argument and that his eyes were burning – or that he made a fool of himself by letting the other win this unspoken fight for dominance – he just wanted to get away, now.

Without reacting to Kevin’s question about their session, Sam grabbed his backpack from under Charlie’s desk, slipped Lucifer’s file he planned to update at home into it and fled out of the building as if, quire ironically, the devil was chasing him. That he skipped the rest of his shift was unimportant – he would not burst into tears at work because of this. Surely he just overreacted, some silence and a few drinks later he would laugh about this childish behavior.

Still, Lucifer had just validated Sam’s suspicions – he _was_ following him around all this time – and no matter if he liked it or not, the blond had implied that all those people he had killed, he had killed because of _Sam_. If this was true, if Lucifer believed he had to _murder_ in order to keep Sam safe, then the doctor was in more trouble than he had ever imagined. With such a dangerous and brutal lunatic being obsessed over him, how could he _ever_ make it out of this alive?


	5. Unpleasant Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weekend, finally. Sam tries to find any sense in what Lucifer said, but it’s impossible. Luckily Dean spends the weekend with his little brother and manages to distract him for a while - until Sam suddenly experiences something horrible and the bad news just won’t end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, but here you go :D As always, feedback is more than welcomed!

The first thing Sam did when he entered his apartment was to lock the door. He couldn’t say why this seemed so important, but once this was done he felt a tiny relief – not enough to make a difference, but it was something. After a quick shower and checking if the door was still locked – better safe than sorry – Sam poured himself a drink and sat down at the kitchen table.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Sam asked into the empty room, earning nothing more than a gargling from the sink as a response.

He had to do _something_ ; that much he knew. When he had first read Lucifer’s file the case was clear: a psychotic and murderous lunatic who enjoyed killing people and apparently managed to trick people into believing he was the devil with his charm and behavior. The moment Lucifer began to tell him about his past though, things had changed. Suddenly Sam was able to see the man he had once been, rather than the monster he was now. Of course he knew that was due to the fact that so much of what Lucifer had said hit very close to home – Sam was always the freak in his family too – but it didn’t lessen the effect it had on him. He had felt pity for Lucifer.

“No, not pity. _Sympathy_ …” Sam mumbled and slowly shook his head, emptying the glass in his hand. “I feel sympathy for him… he’s a killer, a psycho and completely nuts – and I have sympathy for him.”

Saying it out loud made Sam realize how crazy he sounded himself, but it was the truth, wasn’t it? Lucifer had been wronged – given Sam believed what he had told him, which he did. He couldn’t understand how he had become the way he was now, but that was what he tried to find out after all. All this didn’t scare Sam at all for some reason – in fact he had had a hard time during their first session to keep his professional distance. There was something else that worried him and that made him want to run away.

The stalking.

Unable to deny Lucifer had been stalking Sam for the last twenty years or so. For some crazy reason he had been under the impression he had to murder all those people or else they would have – what, kill Sam? Hurt him? He had no idea and he couldn’t make sense of this, at all. If they would have approached him with a knife and Lucifer would have killed them, then he might be able to understand – even though there was still no reason why Lucifer would even care for a stranger like him. Like this, however, it just came across like the work of a completely crazy person and _that_ scared him. Because, despite where Lucifer was at the moment, Sam didn’t really believe he was insane _at all_.

“Lucifer is probably the only sane person in this shitty world,” Sam huffed and poured himself another drink, mildly aware of the fact that alcohol wouldn’t help him to see things clear. Not that it mattered, he wouldn’t go back to work for three days, so he had all the time in the world to think; and besides, it didn’t matter what was going on inside his head, right? As long as he managed to stay professional things would be good.

Apart from sitting there and emptying half the bottle, Sam didn’t do much for the rest of the day. At one point – driven by the dizziness surrounding his mind after the fifth or sixth glass – he got his laptop out and tried to find out more about all those murders Lucifer had committed. Sadly there was almost never much information about the victims, whether it was because the crimes were so far in the past or the victims simply seemed to appear out of nowhere, he couldn’t tell. That was a very interesting thing though. A lot of the people Lucifer had murdered didn’t even seem to _exist_ in the first place.

Those five pedophiles he had murdered during Christmas were a great example. The police had reports of them stalking small children on the local playgrounds and trying to talk them into coming with them, but apart from that they had nothing. No names, no addresses, not even fingerprints in one case. As if they appeared out of thin air and Lucifer slaughtered them. It was crazy and completely unbelievable, but there it was and Sam couldn’t really argue with the police reports. There were a lot more like these, some of the victims had been well known of course and had had friends, but the majority were people with no background whatsoever.

Sam took plenty of notes – whatever he found strange he wrote down so he wouldn’t forget it – but there wasn’t much he could make out of it at the moment. When he dragged himself to bed that night, much earlier than normally, he was drunk enough so his thoughts made even less sense. Sam was glad when his head hit the pillow and he almost immediately passed out.

\---

A slight headache was surprisingly all Sam had to pay for drowning half a bottle of whiskey and since he had started drinking in a much worse condition he saw that as a good thing. After a long and hot shower, Sam went out for a quick run while the air was still fresh and fetched a few sandwiches for lunch from a store nearby. Dean would arrive around noon he had said, so Sam used the remaining morning to clean up a little and hide anything that might cause his brother to mock him.

Sam just got the sandwiches out when he heard the doorbell ring and smirked to himself. Of course Dean would be late, wasn’t really something new. Still, he was thankful for the distraction, as his mind kept wandering back to Lucifer and he didn’t want that.

When he opened the door, Dean greeted him with a six pack in his hand and a grin on his face. Sam pulled him into his arms – nothing too unusual after over a year of not seeing each other – and closed the door with his foot before letting go.

“Good to see you too, man,” Dean said when Sam finally freed him and patted his shoulder. “Ready for a fun weekend?”

“Anything but work, please,” Sam sighed.

“Tough weak?” Dean asked and strutted over to the couch, plopping down on it as soon as he was close enough. He kicked his boots off, ignoring Sam’s scolding glare, and looked up. “Thought you found your dream job?”

Sam shrugged and grabbed the sandwiches before sitting down in a chair opposite to Dean.

“It’s not _bad_ , but this guy I’m working with is giving me a hard time,” Sam said and handed some food over to Dean. “This week was pretty rough.”

“Thank God you have your big brother here now, I’ll make sure work is the last thing on your mind while I’m here.”

Sam had no idea if Dean was right or not, but he still smiled weakly. It would be nice to not think about work for a while, so much Sam knew – and maybe it would turn out to be a good idea to have his brother around. Dean might be reckless at times, but he had always been able to drag Sam out of slumps in the past. This time he’d at least not get into trouble for it, hopefully.

\---

There wasn’t much Sam later remembered about this weekend, but a few things stayed with him. They were only in his apartment to sleep, the rest of the days and nights they spent in bars and strip clubs and – much to Sam’s amusement – completely drunk. He had never been one to knock himself out so much, but he kind of needed some days of mindless existence for the time being and drinking was less dangerous than drugs after all.

At one point Sam even told his brother about his case and all the creepy stuff he had found. Dean didn’t seem to get it. It didn’t matter anyways, not for Sam and surely not for Dean either. Maybe his brother was the wrong person to talk to about this, maybe the only one he would be able to consult about the matter was the one starting it all. Until then he tried having a good time with Dean and not think much.

During the day this plan worked well, they drank and chatted and strolled through the city – at night, however, things got nasty for Sam. His dreams were filled with blood and violence, with faceless creatures lurking for him in the dark and maniac laughter coming from all around him. Sam was glad every time he woke up and wasn’t covered in guts and blood. Those dreams weren’t at all how he had dreamed before – he wasn’t watching the things that happened, he took _part_ in them. And, the worst of all, he woke up from them with a horrible migraine.

On Sunday afternoon things took a turn for the worse, when Dean drove them to the nearest burger place for some food. It came without a warning, a stinging pain drilling through Sam’s right temple and sending spirals of pain through his head that made him gasp in agony. He gripped Dean’s leg – because it was the only thing he could reach – and began to scream on top of his lungs.

Within seconds Dean had brought the car to a halt and was out of it to rip Sam’s door open. The younger man almost fell out of the car, cowering on the ground next to it and trying to get air into his lungs somehow, all while holding his head with both hands. Sam’s head felt like it was exploding and with every second the pain seemed to intensify – until suddenly it was gone as if nothing had ever happened and Sam laid on the side of the car, gasping and shocked and scared eyes staring at his brother.

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean finally got out – it probably wasn’t the first thing he said, but the first Sam heard.

“Yeah…” Sam still held his head and let Dean help him up with his free hand, but the expected pain didn’t come. In fact, nothing happened, apart from a very weird image in his head – an open door and glass shards on the ground. And laughter. He still heard it, a laughter so evil and dark that it sent shivers down his spine.

“You alright, man?” Dean asked and Sam slowly shook his head.

“I… think so…” Sam mumbled, leaning against the car, his legs still a little shaky. “Hey, can we drop eating out? Let’s get something to go, I should lay down.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” Dean helped Sam back into the car, not without eyeing him suspiciously, and then hurried to get the food from the burger place to take it home.

During the fifteen minute ride, Sam leaned his head against the window and stared into the distance, without actually seeing anything. He couldn’t shake off this weird picture. It didn’t make sense and he didn’t know why he had experienced such intense pain before – not even the worst migraines had ever been this bad. His head was still pulsating, a dull feeling that was probably just his blood pressure, which really didn’t help forgetting what happened.

As soon as they were back in his apartment, Sam went to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water. He emptied it in one go, then excused himself to lay down. Dean followed him into his bedroom and made sure he had some painkillers – one of them he forced Sam to take just in case – and left his burger on the nightstand.

“I should leave, you look horrible,” Dean commented once Sam was tucked in and his younger brother nodded slightly.

“Sorry to blow your last day here – I bet that’s not what you had in mind.”

“I’m used to it,” Dean shrugged and even managed to grin a little. “Sam the party crasher.”

“Shut up, jerk,” Sam pressed out, to which Dean laughed.

“You to, bitch. Take care, okay? And if you need a ride to the hospital, call me.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Forget it,” Dean waved his hand and walked over to the door. “I’ll let myself out, you get better.”

“Yeah…”

Sam didn’t even hear the door close anymore. He was already drifting away into a slumber that wasn’t at all relaxing and that gave him more confusing thoughts. None of his dream snippets made any sense, some were violent, while others had almost a calming vibe. Two times Sam woke up screaming when the same image from before flashed through his head and the laughter came back – both times the pain vanished the same as before, as if someone just turned it off.

\---

Upon waking up at six in the morning, Sam was covered in sweat and his whole body felt sore – even his voice hoarse from the screaming during the night. It took him two attempts to finally push himself off the bed and even then, Sam just wanted to lay back down. This was definitely not a hangover – he had had hangovers in the past and there was neither nausea nor the typical taste in his mouth.

After failing to even stand upright while showering, Sam realized that he just couldn’t go to work today. As much as he wanted to pull himself together, it was simply impossible. With his stomach tightening, Sam grabbed for his phone after making his way back to bed, ready to call work, when he realized he had over thirty missed calls – all from work.

“Shit.”

Sam dialed Kevin’s office number, having his call picked up during the first ring.

“Sam, thank God! I tried calling you a hundred times already!” Kevin sounded out of himself, his voice too loud and too terrified in Sam’s ears.

“Sorry, man,” the brunet groaned and used his free hand to press against his right temple in an attempt to stop another shot of pain from the noise. “I feel horrible, Kev. I can’t come in today, we have to cancel my session. Maybe we can –“

“Shut up and _listen_ , Sam! He is _gone_!”

For a moment the line was silent – Kevin’s words hanging in the air like a guillotine. Sam shook his head and tried to find his voice again.

“W-What do you mean… gone?”

“Lucifer broke out tonight! I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t pick up!”

Sam’s mouth was completely dry. This couldn’t be, no way. The Asylum was high security, no one could possibly break out of there without being shot in the back by five guards.

“What happened?” he finally asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“He fucking broke the glass wall and just walked out of the damn building,” Kevin said frustrated and Sam had to think back to the vision – an open door with glass shards on the ground. “No one knows where he is, but he might be after –“

The phone slid out of Sam’s hand before he could here who Lucifer was after, but he already knew anyways. Kevin’s voice coming from the speaker was muffled through the sheets, but Sam couldn’t hear him anymore. A humming sound filled Sam’s head, but that wasn’t all. The laughter was back and now he finally realized whose laughter he hear. Lucifer’s – and his own. For whatever reason, Sam laughed. He laughed and laughed, unable to stop once he started, not even knowing why or how he could in this horrifying situation. There was just the sound of Lucifer’s laughter in his head and his own filling his apartment.

Lucifer was free and he was coming for Sam. God help him, the devil was coming for him.


	6. A Not-So-Friendly Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's colleague and friend Kevin comes over to watch him, worried sick after what happened. But Kevin behaves strange and when Sam suddenly receives a very surprising call, things turn out to be more dangerous than he thought.

Sam only stopped laughing when he suddenly heard loud bangs on his door, confusing him the first moment, as he hadn’t realized how long he sat there.

“Open the damn door, Sam!”

Another laugh escaped Sam’s lips, but this one much more normal than before. Kevin, of course. He shook his head and slid off the bed, eyeing the alarm clock on his nightstand without noticing that only five minutes had passed since he took the call and still feeling as if a train had hit him the night before. Slowly but steady, Sam made his way to the door, his head pulsating more and more with each new bang. When he finally reached for the door handle he thought he would pass out from the pain.

“Stop it!” Sam groaned and already left the door so Kevin could come in. “I _told_ you I’m sick, just leave me alone.”

Kevin followed Sam on his heels, not before slamming the door shut and sending another wave of pain through the other’s head.

“Sam, there’s a damn serial killer on the loose and he’s after you! Do you think this is a joke?” Kevin asked angry and Sam – annoyed and rolling his eyes – snarled at him.

“So what?” he snapped, falling backwards onto the couch and glaring at Kevin. “You don’t think he would be that stupid to actually come here, right?”

“Look,” Kevin sighed and pinched his nose. “I get it, you think you’re fine, but this guy is insane. He has been on the edge the whole weekend.”

“What do you mean, on the edge?” Sam asked surprised.

“He was nervous, pacing through his cell and refusing to eat. He didn’t sleep either. He didn’t even take his damn eyes from me for a second.”

“Sounds like my weekend,” Sam huffed and shook his head again.

“He’s dangerous, Sam. We already informed the police and they said someone should stay with you, just in case.”

“And now you’re babysitting me, awesome,” Sam rolled his eyes overly dramatic. “I can take care of _myself_.”

Kevin didn’t answer, instead looked around the room and eyeing the chaos the last days had left – empty beer bottles, dirty clothes and lots of dishes in the sink.  Sam knew how his apartment looked of course and that it didn’t help the situation.

“I see that,” Kevin finally said, sighing.

“Just leave me alone, I can watch my own back.”

“Not happening, sorry,” Kevin shook his head, while Sam kept glaring at him.

He got his phone out and dialed a number, but Sam didn’t care what he was up to at the moment. With a low groan he pushed himself off the couch and made his way to the bathroom. Kevin would stay, whether he liked it or not – Sam wouldn’t be able to do anything about that apparently. Not that he could have done much if he tried anyways – physically he was much stronger than Kevin, but his current state didn’t even allow him to raise his voice, yet alone throw his friend out of the apartment.

When he came back fifteen minutes later – showered and with two painkillers in his system – Kevin was still there, waiting for him.

“Feeling better?”

“Yes, _mom_. You can leave now,” Sam scoffed, only earning a smile.

“The police told me to stay, so I’ll stay. I can make coffee if you want to, you look like you need one.”

Sam waved his hand, knowing that he was unable to change something about Kevin’s decision, and walked back over to his bed. His phone was still there, glowing at him in the darkness of the room. Only now Sam noticed the alarm clock again and frowned. It wasn’t even seven and he knew that his stay in the bathroom had been quite long. Confused, he looked at his phone, assuming the alarm clock might be broken, but it showed him the same time – 6:56 am. Something wasn’t right here, but he couldn’t say what it was. Then, when the number changed from 56 to 57, it suddenly clicked.

Kevin _couldn’t_ be here. It was impossible for him to take Sam’s call at the Asylum shortly after six and be here not even ten minutes after. Sam’s heart made a jump when he heard Kevin’s voice and he spun around, gasping a surprised ‘What?’

“I asked: Milk or sugar?” Kevin sounded almost happy, another thing not quite adding up.

“Sugar, no milk!” Sam yelled back and then, as quietly as he could, closed the bedroom door.

“Okay, Sam… relax… it’s all good…” the doctor mumbled to himself, clutching the phone in his hand. “Maybe you called at five, not six. Just couldn’t see the number right, no big deal, really…”

As much as Sam wanted to believe his own words, he knew they weren’t true. Charlie worked the night shift on Sunday and Kevin only showed up shortly before six – he _couldn’t_ have called at five and reached him. What the hell was going on here?

Carefully Sam peeked out of the bedroom to see if Kevin was back, but the living room was still empty and from the kitchen he heard metal clinging. After closing the door again, he muted his phone and unlocked it. He had to find out what was happening, now. Sam was just about to dial his brother’s number from his address book, when the phone suddenly began vibrating in his hand. He almost dropped it onto the floor, but managed to hold onto it before anything happened.

_Unknown Number_

Sam’s stomach tightened when he took the call with his shaking hand and brought the phone to his ear.

“Y-Yes? Who’s there?”

For a moment the line was silent and Sam thought it was just someone dialing the wrong number, but before he could hang up he heard a voice that sent chills through his whole body.

“Sam, it’s me. I need you to listen to me.”

_Lucifer!_

Sam’s jaw dropped and the heart that had raced before felt as if it had stopped beating altogether. He couldn’t get a word out, the only thing leaving his throat was a dry gasp when he pressed the phone closer to his ear – all while wanting to run away as fast and far as he could.

“If you don’t listen you’re going to die today, Sam. _Are_ you listening to me?”

Sam nodded slowly before realizing Lucifer couldn’t see him, so he added a ‘Yeah’ with a shaking voice.

“You are in danger, Sam. Your friend is not who you think he is,” Lucifer spoke very quiet, his voice disturbed by what Sam assumed to be wind – maybe he was in a car or something. “If he asks, your brother called, do you understand me?”

“Y-yes…” Sam mumbled and once again peeked out of the bedroom door. This time he saw Kevin sitting on his couch, two mugs of coffee in front of him and smiling over.

“Who is it?” Kevin asked and Sam brought one of his trembling finger to his lips, shaking his head.

“Dean,” he whispered, pretending to cover the speaker. “Gimme a minute, okay?”

Kevin nodded and Sam closed the door again, his heart beating for its life again now.

“What’s happening here?” he whispered into the phone, getting away from the door as far as the small room allowed him. “Where are you? What is wrong with Kevin?”

“This is not Kevin, Sam. It’s is something dangerous. Whatever he offers you, don’t take it. No food, no drink, nothing. I’m on my way, but you have to be careful until I arrive.”

“You can’t _come_ here!” Sam gasped, for some reason more scared about the fact Lucifer was on his way than Kevin not being Kevin. “He said the police is observing me!”

“Sam, I know what I’m doing. I told you I had reasons for what I did and I have to do it again – if I don’t you won’t survive it, I promise you that.”

“You want to… _kill_ Kevin?”

This couldn’t be. Sam’s head spun, the nausea coming back even worse than the day before. Kevin was his _friend_ , he couldn’t allow anyone to harm him, not even when he was in danger!

“Kevin is long gone, Sam. This man in your apartment is not your friend, he’s a monster.”

“He… he can’t be… you’re crazy,” Sam shook his head, despite the pain that took over him the same second, with tears building up in his eyes. “Kevin is my friend! I won’t allow you to touch him!”

The line was silent for a moment again, the only sound a sigh coming from somewhere far – or not so far – away. A knock on the door made Sam dart up from the bed immediately.

“Everything alright, Sam?” Kevin asked and stuck his head into the room. “What happened?”

“N-nothing!” Sam quickly shook his head and wiped his eyes dry.

“Tell him your brother told you your aunt died and you need to discuss her funeral with him,” Lucifer whispered in his ear and Sam gulped heavily. “If you want to live, you _have_ to. Sam, _please_ …”

This one word, more than anything else, got through to Sam. He looked at Kevin with a sad face, trying his hardest to not show the fear that crawled through him.

“My aunt… Dean said she died…” he mumbled and covered the speaker again. “Can you give me a moment? I’ll be right back, but he’s pretty shaken. He really liked her and, well, you know how annoying things are when someone dies.”

“Sure, sure,” Kevin grinned – a creepy grin that only got worse when Sam saw a flash of darkness in his friend’s eyes. “I’ll be waiting.”

Kevin closed the door, his eyes not leaving Sam until it was completely shut, and the brunet was unable to look away himself. He had never seen Kevin like this before and it honestly scared him.

“Sam, are you still there?” Lucifer asked worried and Sam sighed.

“Yeah… I’m here…” he muttered and ran a hand through his hair. “His eyes… I thought they were black for a moment… I’m going insane here.”

“You’re not losing your mind, Sam,” Lucifer said and through the phone the doctor heard cars behind him honking angrily. “This… _thing_ , it’s not human. And you can’t fight it, not alone, not yet.”

“Not… human? What are you talking about?”

“Your friend is a demon, a demon that uses him to fool you. Kevin is possessed.”

“You’re crazy…” Sam didn’t want to say this – or anything to be honest – but the words slipped out before he could stop them. This was ridiculous, how could his friend be a demon? “Demons don’t exist…”

“You don’t have the slightest idea, Sam. I _will_ take care of it, just don’t eat or drink anything until I’m there – and don’t let him out of your sight!”

Before Sam could say anything more the line was dead and he dropped his hand, staring at the phone in complete disbelief. He couldn’t believe it, anything but not this. Kevin couldn’t be a demon or possessed, he just _couldn’t_. A wave of utter despair washed over him and Sam hid his face in his hands, unable to stop them from shaking again. There was nothing he could do but sob dry, not even tears were there at the moment – there was nothing but agony and the feeling of losing the last bit of his sanity.

Sam didn’t know how long he sat there, but after a while his bedroom door opened again and he looked up. Kevin still had a very inappropriate smile on his face, but the rest looked like a mask.

“Is everything alright?” he asked and Sam forced himself to nod.

“Yeah… I’m just a little shocked, I think.”

“Of course, your aunt died. Everyone would be shocked,” Kevin said with a monotone voice and nodded slowly. “Come get some coffee, you’ll feel better afterwards.”

Sam nodded and stood up, but he had no intention of drinking the coffee Kevin had made. He didn’t know why he believed what Lucifer told him, but he did. Kevin was acting weird since he arrived, Sam knew that. And he _had_ called him at six, so Kevin couldn’t have arrived so early – unless his friend had learned how to run at the speed of light. And the weird smile, the strange cheerful attitude that didn’t fit the mood at all… it all didn’t make sense if Kevin was who he pretended to be.

Cautiously, Sam eyed Kevin as he sat down – on the far away chair, not on the couch next to the other. He took the mug into his hand, but didn’t drink. Somehow he needed to kill time, he had to wait for Lucifer to arrive.

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked, smirking. “Drink.”

“I don’t feel good, Kev,” Sam sighed. “Gimme a minute.”

Kevin raised a brow, suspicion written all over his face, and nodded.

“Dean feels horrible,” Sam lied, trying to not show his nervousness. “He said it was a stroke while she was asleep, but he sounded so devastated. I mean, we knew she was sick, but it’s still kinda sudden, you know?”

“Yeah… sure,” Kevin seemed slightly annoyed already, but Sam ignored it the best he could.

“We always spent our summer holidays with her and Dean drove her crazy sometimes. She always joked he would be her death one day, but she really loved him. Kind of like our second mom, really,” Sam knew he was babbling, but he didn’t really care. If he could just keep Kevin, or whatever this man who looked like him was, busy for a while… “He said the funeral will be next week in Lawrence, so I’ll have to take a few days off then. Do you think that’s okay?”

“Of course, Sam,” Kevin smiled brightly.

“Thanks, man” Sam managed to smile back, even if the smile was forced and felt very wrong. “I really wanna see her one last time, you know. She meant a lot to us.”

“Oh, you’ll see her again, I’m sure of that.”

This creepy comment was all Sam needed to convince himself that this was _not_ his friend anymore – whatever it was, it wore Kevin like a suit. Sam had never prayed in his life, but now he begged all gods and deities in existence for this nightmare to stop – for Kevin to tell him this was all a cruel joke and be himself again. All of his hopes, however, were crushed when Kevin leaned forward and the smile on his lips turned into a grin that made Sam freeze.

“Drink your coffee, _Sam_ , before it gets cold.”

To not raise even more suspicion, Sam brought the mug to his lips. He wouldn’t drink any of this, not with how persistent the one who looked like Kevin was. Instead he pressed his lips together, pretending to take a sip from the lukewarm liquid, and put the mug back down.

“Thanks, really,” he said with a quiet voice, afraid that it would be shaking if he spoke louder. “I’m glad to have you here. This whole thing scares me a little to be honest.”

When Sam pulled his hands away from the mug, he suddenly felt something vibrate in his pocket. He quickly pulled his phone out and stood up, signaling the other that he would quickly take the call.

“Hello, Dean?” Sam asked, hoping the unknown caller was the same as before. He had to suppress a sigh of relief when the deep voice reached his ears.

“I’m almost there. Sam, I want you to listen carefully now. Do not turn your back at him, whatever you do, do not –“

Sam didn’t hear what Lucifer said next. In an attempt to hide the true nature of the call, he had turned his back towards Kevin and now earned the reward. A huge explosion of pain in his head sent the doctor right on his knees, the phone slipping out of his hand and a scream leaving his lungs. Everything became blur and his ear were filled with a horrible sound he didn’t recognize as his own voice breaking from the agony he felt. Above him, his former friend stood with a large crowbar – his eyes pitch black.

“Time to meet your aunt again, Sam…” the one pretending to be Kevin said, a wicked smile on his lips.

Sam only saw him through a veil of red as blood dripped into his right eye and he had to summon all his strength to not faint at the spot – if was unconscious he would have no chance of surviving this at all.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time,” the demon – Sam finally admitted that this was exactly what he was to himself – snarled, black eyes piercing through the doctor. “You’re such a rude person, do you know that? And you get yourself in trouble with it. If you would have taken my offer, you wouldn’t feel a thing anymore. Now, though?” his lips curled into a smirk and he pulled something out from behind his back – a dagger. “You’ll feel _everything_.”

The cold metal pressed against Sam’s throat the next second and with horror he felt his consciousness slip away, unable to do anything about it. There was only one single word that rolled over his tongue when the demon drew blood from him and his eyes closed in resignation.

“Lucifer…”

Suddenly, without a warning, the dagger was pulled away and Sam felt a cold taking over him he couldn’t explain – intense and stinging, almost as if someone poured ice water over him. Without the demon’s grip, Sam fell back and his the floor with his head, creating more pain in his already exploding skull. His eyes opened, however, and what he saw in the doorframe put a relieved smile on his lips.

“You called, kiddo?”

Lucifer’s eyes were glowing dangerously, but when he looked at Sam the doctor saw something in them he knew wasn’t there for the demon – sentiment. He didn’t know why he smiled or why he was glad Lucifer came after all; right now he was just relieved that the nightmare might be over.

“Close your eyes, you don’t want to see this.”

Sam did as Lucifer ordered, unable to disobey the luring voice. Even through his closed eyelids, however, he saw that the room filled with a light so bright it was physically painful and all he could do was groan and roll over, away from it. The next moment he heard a thud and then cold, but very gentle hands shoved under his neck and back, slowly lifting him up.

“It’s over. Sam, can you hear me?”

“Is he… dead?” Sam groaned and his eyes fluttered open, finding Lucifer’s blue ones.

“The demon, yes. Your friend too, I’m afraid.”

Carefully, fearing what he would see, Sam’s eyes shifted away from Lucifer and found the body of his former friend on the floor. He wanted to cry at the sight of him, but he wasn’t even strong enough for that – all he could do was stare at the face he knew for so many years, now with its eyes burned out and as dead as could be.

“Why?” it was all Sam could ask, but Lucifer slowly shook his head.

“Not now, later,” he said and Sam, expecting this answer already, nodded.

He reached up with his hands, his fingers curling into the fabric of Lucifer’s shirt, and closed his eyes again. The blond lifted him up from the ground, trying to get him over to the couch – stopping dead in his tracks when suddenly five or six metallic clicking noises came from the open apartment door, along with a commanding and loud voice.

“It’s over, Devil. Put the man down and step back.”

“Officer,” Lucifer said quiet, a hint of amusement in his voice. “If you would let me get Sam to a more comfortable place than the floor –“

“Six men are pointing guns at you, _asshole_!” the police officer shouted, completely ignoring Lucifer’s words. “You put the man down where you stand, _now_.”

“Very well,” Lucifer sighed and gave Sam, who had opened his eyes again, a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Sam. They were faster than I expected.”

“It’s fine…” Sam managed to smile when Lucifer carefully knelt down and sat him back onto the floor.

“Hands up, Morningstar! I wanna see them when you turn around!”

Lucifer followed the orders and, even though Sam wanted nothing more than just close his eyes and sleep, the brunet’s eyes never left his patient for a second. He only took two steps forward before a fist landed on his cheek, without any warning, and his head flew to the side. At the same second, Sam gasped and fell forward on his hands, only to watch Lucifer stumble back, before he got down on one knee and glare up at the man who had just hit him.

“Now you’re not so brave anymore, huh?” The man barked and stepped forward. “What would you have done if we were not watching this apartment, tell me, you son of a bitch! Would’ve killed this man too, yes?”

“I would rather die than harm a single hair on Sam Winchester’s body,” Lucifer huffed and spit out a mouthful of blood.

The man didn’t seem to like this answer, because the next second his boot hit Lucifer’s face and sent him on the ground completely – blood now tripping down from one of his ears. Sam ignored the panic rat that ran loose in his head and immediately scooted forward, shoving his hands under Lucifer’s head before it could hit the ground.

“Stop it!” Sam yelled at the one who had just kicked his patient, tears shimmering in his eyes. “He saved me! This man tried to kill me!”

“Shut up, doctor,” the man growled and bend down, grabbing Lucifer’s collar and lifting him up – just to throw him towards the other police officers, with one barely able to catch him before he fell. “I’ve been after this asshole for ten years, I won’t allow anyone to protect him.”

“It’s okay, Sam,” Lucifer managed to say through his swollen and bloody lip, glancing at the doctor on the ground. “They won’t kill me, they can’t.”

“That’s right, asshole. But we can make sure you’ll never try to flee again.”

With these words the police officers shoved Lucifer out of the apartment, only leaving Sam and one of them in the room. Sam just sat on the ground and looked up at the uniformed figure, unable to get a word out.

“They’ll take him back, you need to go to the hospital. What did he do to you?”

Apparently this man was not as crazy as the other, he seemed genuinely worried, but Sam didn’t care. He slowly shook his head and his eyes fell back on the body of his dead friend.

“He didn’t do anything…” he whispered. “He saved my life…”


	7. Do you trust me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam spends the night at the hospital and when he comes home gets a little surprise delivered. He can feel himself falling apart, drifting away and there is only one thing he can think about: Lucifer.

They investigated, of course they did. The police officer that had stayed behind in Sam’s apartment brought the doctor to the hospital and then, while the nurse was still checking for injuries that weren’t as obvious as the laceration on his temple, interrogated him. Sam gave short answers, his thoughts drifting away constantly as he thought about the way Lucifer had looked at him when he had picked him up or later, after the other police officer had already beaten him bloody. He didn’t blame anything on him, not even when the nurse and doctor from the hospital insisted that he stayed overnight.

Alone in the small room, a single patient room being the only thing he insisted on, Sam had a lot of time to think. He didn’t sleep, barely dozed off for a few minutes every now and then. The nurse, a young woman named Meg, came in every hour to check his pulse and to make sure he didn’t need anything, but Sam never demanded anything from her. In the morning, the doctor told Sam that he had not suffered from any internal injuries and could go home, to which Sam replied simply with:

“Okay.”

He didn’t want to go back to the place where he had seen his friend – or what looked like his friend at least – die, but he had no other choice. Kevin was his only real friend in town and with Dean being on the road again, where else could he possibly go? So, Sam left the hospital and took a taxi back to his apartment. It felt strange coming back – there was still police tape in front of the door, but since the investigations were over Sam just ripped it off and stepped inside. After closing the door, he immediately noticed that he had messages on his answering machine and sighed.

The first one was from the police officer – the one that had stayed behind and took him to the hospital – who just called to inform him that he needed to come to the station for a detailed report the next days.

The second one was Dean, asking if he was alright and to call him back once he felt better. Apparently the events of last night didn’t make it onto the news yet.

The last message was from Charlie.

“Sam, are you there? The police just called and told me what happened, I really had no clue! You have to call back, everyone is going crazy here. They brought Lucifer back – high security this time. He won’t get out again, we made sure of that. You can have as many days off as you need, but please call me and tell me you’re alright, okay? If you need anything, just tell me.”

Sam was relieved when the machine cut her off, hearing the worry in Charlie’s voice made his head hurt again. He groaned and dragged himself to the bathroom. Luckily he had a few painkillers – the perks of being a doctor – and he quickly swallowed two of them with a glass of water, before inspecting himself in the mirror.

He really didn’t know what he had expected, but the face staring back at him was a stranger, nothing more. His eyes were dull, all color drained from his skin and his lips were dry from the lack of hydration. How long he stared at himself like this and tried to remember how this could be him, he didn’t know. His vision blurred and refocused too often to count and when he finally managed to force himself to look away and move, there were tears in his eyes.

For the whole morning Sam paced his apartment, restless and searching for something that wasn’t there. He didn’t eat, barely drank enough to not collapse, and when the doorbell rang somewhere around two he flinched and his heart began racing like mad. He didn’t even dare to open the door, too terrified of another monster or worse bursting in – he only peeked out when he had heard steps and they were gone again. What he found was a small package with his name on the doorstep. Curiously, Sam picked it up and closed the door again. Who would send him a package, especially when he didn’t give his address to anyone except his work and Dean?

After sitting down on the couch, Sam slowly opened the package in his hands. At first glance it appeared to be empty, except from a card, but when he picked it up he found something else beneath it. There was a small necklace and the second his hand closed around the pendant on it, tears shot into Sam’s eyes. He brought the hand to his lips, pressed them against it and then fiddled with the card. He was barely able to read the writing on it with his blurred vision, but somehow it worked.

_Things belonging together will always find each other.  
No one’s beyond saving, kiddo._

_– L_

Sam sniffed and slowly opened his hand, revealing the small silver pendant. It had been _years_ since he last saw it – thrown into a river after a horrible argument with his brother about leaving for college. This day had marked the beginning of two silent years between him and his brother and had thrown Sam into a deep depression he only slowly recovered from – now it was back in his possession, as flawless as it had always been and just as precious. It was the first thing he had ever bought for himself, long ago when they had spent Christmas in Nebraska. The idea had been to give it to his dad, but since he had left them alone Dean was the one he gave it to instead. When his brother had thrown it into the distance – along with the words ‘Fine! Leave, I don’t have a brother anymore!’ – Sam’s heart had been shattered.

He didn’t know how Lucifer had gotten this, but he knew it was the one that belonged to him. There was a fine scratch on the back of it, barely visible without the right light. Sam slowly brushed his thumb over the spot and felt the scratch like he did on the day he bought it. If Lucifer had sent this package – and Sam was sure about that, there was no one else who could have done it – then he must have had it for a long time. Why did he take it? And why was he giving it back to him now, who thought it was lost forever?

“He knew I would need it…” Sam whispered and gently kissed the pendant between his fingers. Carefully, he took the chain it was on, closed his eyes and put it around his neck. When the cold metal rested on his chest it was almost as if a light had been turned on in his head. When he opened his eyes again and looked up, the tears had dried. “He knew it…” Somewhere in the back of his head, Sam heard laughter. It was silent and a little creepy, but it put a smile on his face and he began to laugh quietly himself.

With one swift movement, Sam was on his feet, the lethargy from before completely gone. He walked over to the kitchen, carefully avoiding the spot where a few red strains from the night before were left – Kevin’s blood – and poured himself a glass of gin from the shelf. After chunking it down and taking a deep breath, he let out a guttural growl and bared his teeth. This felt much better.

Charlie said he could stay home for as long as he needed, but Sam didn’t _want_ to stay home. Not at all. He grinned mischievously when he roamed his wardrobe and dug deep through clothes he had not worn for years. No, he would pay the Asylum a visit very soon – today, to be precise. When he finally found what he was looking for he undressed and looked at himself in the mirror.

The harsh handling the night before had left its marks – bruises covering his sides and arms, a small cut on his hand he hadn’t seen until now – but Sam didn’t think any of that mattered. The pendant, however, mattered. He didn’t know how or why, but when he looked at it and how it reflected the light through the mirror, it felt right somehow. When he dressed in his new clothes, he did so methodically. It was both a process of covering himself and _becoming_ himself, even if he couldn’t explain why. It made _sense_ , Sam didn’t care for anything else. Anything else came later.

The black pants he had bought back in Stanford – the result of a bet he lost to his friend Brady – still fit, the black leather and buckles unfamiliar, but not unwelcomed. When he slipped into the tight white shirt he was surprised how good it actually looked. The shirt was one he had snagged from Dean before running away to college, because he had liked the design and it wasn’t Dean’s style anyways, but so far he had never worn it. Slowly he turned around, a smirk creeping on his lips when he saw that the black wings on the back of it aligned perfectly with his shoulder blades. In a sharp handwriting and black, the front simply said ‘The Devil’s Lil Monster’. It was perfect.

After putting his combat boots on and buckling them up, Sam pulled on a pair of black cuffs with chains and belts, something he had bought out of the moment, without even thinking much. Now, fully dressed, he turned in front of the full-length mirror and admired his choice. It was good, but not quite what he wanted. He pulled the pendant out from under his shirt and then finally nodded.

“Perfect,” he said to his reflection and grinned. “Let’s have some fun.”

\---

Sam left his apartment shortly after it got dark outside, a sports bag over his shoulder, filled with many surprised. He didn’t care to lock the door, it was kind of pointless. A long black leather coat hid everything but the boots, but he figured he could get away with them. He had no idea what he would do once he arrived at the Asylum, but why should he? He had followed a plan for all his life, this wasn’t a situation to plan ahead. Sam would just do what he had to do.

As he drove through the night, ignoring the speed limit and red lights alike, Sam felt a freedom he had never experienced before. With all windows down and music in his ears, nothing existed apart from the road in front of him and where it would lead him. Maybe he was going mad, maybe he was beginning to see clearly for the first time in his life. No matter what it was – Sam was excited, thrilled even.

Sam parked the car half a mile away from his destination, got the bag out of the trunk and continued afoot. The night was cold, but it was a refreshing cold – like Lucifer’s touch during their second session. The connection his mind made had him smiling.

Two police cars parked in front of the Asylum’s property and Sam quickly hid in the bushes when he saw cops patrolling along the fence. He had expected something, so he wasn’t really all that surprised. Two more cops sat in the cars, so he had a total of four to deal with; no big deal.

As quiet as possible, Sam opened the sports bag and got one of the firecrackers out he had stuffed in there before. He waited until the two cops patrolling stopped to talk for a moment, then lightened the fuse and threw it as far away as possible. While waiting for the detonation he sneaked closer, ready to jump into action. The bang only made him flinch slightly, the cops, however, were on high alert. They pulled out their guns, even the two inside the cars jumped out now and followed their colleagues, who already ran down the street into the darkness.

Sam shot out of the bushes and pushed himself through the leaned on gate of the property, immediately hiding in the dark of the hedges again and slowly sneaking towards the entry. To his luck this one was unprotected and he was able to easily get in with his keycard. The hallway was empty – given the night shift had already taken over and this meant minimum security – so Sam simply walked over to the stairs and slipped through the door. To his luck, Kevin had showed him around during his first week, making it much easier now to sneak through the staff only corridors to reach the high security area. Here, Sam faced the first problem, even though it wasn’t a big one for now. It would become one later, but for now he just had to hurry now, because the high security block was covered in cameras.

Without hesitating, Sam pulled the gas mask he had bought out of his bag, as well as an iron baseball bat and – just in case – a can of mace, which he shoved into his pants. He put the mask on, making sure he could still see, and took a deep breath. The area was small, only two cells, so he wouldn’t have to search for long. He ripped the door open and rushed into the block, the baseball bat ready and his mind stern.

The first guard Sam ran into didn’t see anything coming. With one swing the baseball bat knocked the man out, sending him straight into unconsciousness. Sam only stopped to pick up the guy’s gun, then he scurried around the corner. The thud of the guard as he hit the floor, had alarmed the second one Sam now faced, but the man was too surprised by him to really have a chance. This time Sam knocked him out with the barrel of the gun, just one precise blow, thanks to knowing where to land it.

Sam passed the empty cell in the first corridor without looking into it – he knew they wouldn’t keep Lucifer here. But now he really had to hurry – the other guards and the police knew something was up now. Not wasting a second, Sam kicked the door to the other corridor open – smashing if effectively into another guard’s face. This one, however, turned out to be a tougher one and stayed on his feet, glaring at Sam and already grabbing for his gun. He whipped the mace out and shot a full load into his eyes, sending him onto the ground instantly, screaming his lungs out. Sam stepped over him without a second look and walked up to the cell, where Lucifer was already on his feet.

“Time to go home,” Sam said and pulled the gas mask off, revealing his face.

A smirk appeared on Lucifer’s lips as he inspected the doctor.

“’The Devil’s Lil Monster’…” he read, suppressing a chuckle. “Did you come to free the Devil, Sam?”

Sam didn’t answer, just grinned and got his key card out of his back pocket, swiping it through the lock. Lucifer watched him closely when he punched in the universal code that opened all doors. The door opened with a hissing noise and Sam pushed it enough so Lucifer could step out.

“I’m very impre–“

Lucifer couldn’t finish his sentence – Sam’s lips pressed against his own shut him up suddenly. It wasn’t long or very gentle, but it was enough to make the patient’s eyes widen slightly and Sam swallow when he pulled back.

“We have to hurry, they’re coming,” he said and put the card back where it came from.

The blond nodded, not questioning Sam when he made the gun ready and handed it to him. Once Lucifer was armed, Sam turned around, ready to leave, only to find guard number three getting back on his feet.

“You son of a bitch!” the tall man growled and stepped forward, aiming his own gun at them.

The doctor cursed himself for not disarming this bastard when he had the chance, but before any of them could do anything a loud bang filled the air and the guard broke down on the spot. Sam spun around, his eyes wide in shock and surprise. Lucifer gave him a stern look. Sam gulped again, then nodded and quickly hurried to the man that had just been shot. He picked up the gun from the floor and together they made their way back to the stairs.

“My car is parked half a mile from here,” Sam explained quickly as they walked past the other two knocked out guards. “We will have to fight our way out probably, but we can do it.”

“You lead the way, kiddo.”

Sam’s chest swelled with pride for some unknown reason and he gave Lucifer a warm smile. His good mood was crushed abruptly though when he pushed the door to the stairs open and heard the heavy steps coming from the basement.

“Fuck,” Sam hissed annoyed and wished he would have gotten a bazooka or something similar, when Lucifer grabbed his arm and gained his attention. “What?”

“The roof, come on,” Lucifer said and began dragging Sam up the stairs, who was completely baffled now.

“The roof?” he yelped. “Lucifer, this is a five story building!”

Lucifer ignored Sam’s objection and kept going. Without any other option and no idea what else to do, Sam gave in and followed the blond upstairs. They wouldn’t make it out of this alive if they were desperate enough to flee to the roof of a five story building, but what else was left? Armed guards and cops were below them, catching up, and their only option was the roof and a miracle now.

Sam smashed the lock that kept the door to the roof shut with his baseball bat, allowing them to step outside. In an attempt to buy themselves some time, Sam pushed the bat through the door handle from the outside to secure it at least for a while and then followed Lucifer further into the night. Up here, the wind was howling and blowing Sam’s hair around like crazy. Oh god, what mess did they stumble into? How could he have thought this was a good idea? They would die here, either freeze or fall into their death – or they’d be shot. With tears building up in his eyes, Sam dropped the sports bag he still had over his shoulder.

“What now?” Sam asked and looked at Lucifer for a sign of hope. What he found was a smile.

“Do you trust me?” Lucifer asked quietly, barely audible over the rattling that now came from the door Sam had blocked.

“What?” Sam scurried closer and pressed against Lucifer’s side, a confused look on his face.

“Do you trust me, Sam?” Lucifer asked again, the same quiet patience in his voice.

Sam gulped and the next moment the baseball bat his the ground, loosened by the constant rattling, and the door flew open. Panicking, Sam stared at the guards and cops storming the roof and pointing their guns at them. He knew there was no way out – this was their end.

“Put your weapons down and hands in the air!” one of the men shouted and both of them dropped their guns without a word or further reaction.

Knowing his life was over, Sam leaned his head against Lucifer’s shoulder and closed his eyes. If it was his last moment, he wanted to be as close to him as possible. They stood at the edge of the roof, merely an inch or two away from the inevitable fall into death, but it didn’t matter anymore.

“I trust you,” he whispered and felt the other’s arms wrap around him.

“Then jump.”

Without thinking, Sam pushed them both over the edge the second the bullets began flying through the air. There was no fear in him in this moment, only the relief of holding onto the other and not falling apart anymore. So he would die in a few seconds, he didn’t care. He had found the one that made him feel whole and even if they only had a few seconds – it was worth it.

Suddenly Sam was pulled back up and ripped his eyes open in shock. They were moving up at an inhuman pace and with the wind pulling on Sam’s clothes like mad.

“Lucifer, what –“ the brunet turned around, but when his eyes fell on Lucifer all the words were gone.

He had no idea what he expected, but certainly not seeing six huge wings spread from Lucifer’s back and carrying them through the night sky like this. All the air was pressed out of his lungs at this sight and for a moment Sam really thought he had died and this was his version of heaven – or hell. Everything Lucifer had said and done flashed before Sam’s eyes and the more he remembered, the more he was terrified.

“What _are_ you?” Sam breathed helplessly, still frantically clinging to Lucifer’s shirt.

“I am the Devil, Sam. I told you,” the blond smiled and when his eyes began glowing again Sam knew he had been blind all along.

All this time he had thought of Lucifer as a liar, but the only thing ever leaving the others lips had been the truth. Lucifer _was_ the Devil – a fallen angel – and Sam, oblivious to the truth or not, had just freed him and trusted him with his life. Nothing had ever felt so surreal and so breathtaking before – absolutely nothing.

The combination of exhaustion, lack of oxygen and simply overwhelmed by everything, Sam blacked out.


End file.
